Wednesday, September 15, 2004

Natural and unnatural

When someone starts preaching to me what's natural and what isn't I clutch my wallet and my handy copy of the Constitution, because the argument that's following is that when things happen in nature but outside of what the speakers deems "natural", then society and law should force the unnatural things into their natural behavior.

Yes, I know. It gives me a headache, too.

Recent posts/discussions on Alas, a Blog and Echidne of the Snakes got me to thinking back on the ludicrious nature of this argument. A troll on Alas is trotting out the usual arguments that homosexuals can't marry, since homosexuals aren't natural, and the evidence for this is they don't fit into socially constructed gender roles. Of course, he can't admit that those gender roles are social constructs, so he says that they are nature. We know men and women are completely different naturally, because only one wears white on the wedding day.

I meet plenty of men who believe this, because, as Echidne points out, the "natural" sex roles just so happen to be the ones where women take care of men and do all the emotional work in relationships. If someone coughed up a theory that men naturally had an urge to wait on women and give them daily back rubs, I too would be inclined to believe it. I may even be inclined to tell my boyfriend that all men give women daily backrubs and when he pointed out that he is not "all" men, I could be inclined to call him unnatural. Luckily for him, no one is publishing books that flatteringly tell me that my sex entitles me to more than the chance to get some compliments and a couple of dinners early on in a relationship.

Whenever I get into an argument with a man who tells me that men and women are naturally different, and I am lying to myself when I don't have that god-given urge to vaccum, it isn't too long before this man will whip out his wife as an example of how all women are _____. The idea, of course, is that as an unmarried woman, I can't know how men and women are so different. The troll at Alas finally uncorks this one.

The point is that men and women are physically, emotionally, and psychologically different. Humans are either male or female. We can't legislate away gender differences. They exist. Marriage serves to bridge that gap. That's what makes the marital relationship special and unique. Men are from Mars, and Women are from Venus. Not every man has the male gender stereotypes, nor every woman the female ones. But there is truth in my, feeble, according to you, attempt at humor. Any one who has been married for a number of years can attest to that. Is there anyone (hetero) out there beside me who is married? When he says that we are trying to "legislate gender differences", by the way, he is arguing for a ban on gay marriage because it doesn't fit his theory of gender difference. So, apparently since we cannot legislate away gender difference, we are required to use the law to enforce gender difference. Anyway, I felt sorry for this man's wife. Sure, he might have recognized her as an individual when dating her, someone that he liked better than most of the women he met in his day-to-day life. But now that they are married, her personality is a stand-in for All Women. His wife is grumpy when she has PMS, therefore All Women are grumpy when they have PMS. Or something like that. (Yes, I am aware that he says that not all men or all women do this or that, but since he was earlier making fun of anyone who stepped out of their ascribed gender roles, his feelings about variety were made perfectly clear.)

But there is a bit of nuance in the men are from Mars, women from Venus way of thinking. The nuance is that they admit that if men and women are so drastically different there is good reason to believe that they would not enjoy each other's company. So marriage exists to force them to get along and that's why there's so much social pressure to marry. Once again, pity swells in my heart. How must it feel to be married to someone you otherwise admit is so foreign that he/she wouldn't even be in your life if not forced by marriage?

Before I drop this, I have one more quote that caused me to laugh from Echidne's comments section.

Not ten minutes ago I had an aquaintance in my room who took a look around and said "women are supposed to be clean."A better example of the sex difference arguments would be hard to find--women are naturally this, and if they aren't this, then they can be forced by being called unnatural.

107 Comments:

But even if men and women are "naturally different" and fit natural gender roles, I don't understand his objection. If gay men, for example, are the result of actual physiological differences (versus simply choice) then they are "naturally different" from your "natural man." (I am choking on all of this as I write, just so you know). Then it makes more sense to fit homosexuals into the gender roles we acknowledge: i.e. "masculine and feminine" rather than "male and female." It would in fact be LESS natural for a gay male to marry a straight female than a more-feminine gay male to marry a more-masculine gay male. Seems to me he is arguing against himself, using this defense that humans have natural gender roles.

The whole argument to me is moot. If marriage were only a religious sacrament, then each church is free to marry whom they choose. But marriage is a civil institution as well that grants property rights. IMO we should split them, and give every couple the right to a civil union. Then let the churches decide who they will "marry" in the eyes of their church community and their interpretation of God's laws.

One can honor some general natural differences and still not see them as determinative. Legislation is needed not to protect social norms (even if those norms are good); it is needed to protect those who, for any number of reasons, choose to deviate from those norms.

But even if men and women are "naturally different" and fit natural gender roles, I don't understand his objection. If gay men, for example, are the result of actual physiological differences (versus simply choice) then they are "naturally different" from your "natural man." (I am choking on all of this as I write, just so you know). Then it makes more sense to fit homosexuals into the gender roles we acknowledge: i.e. "masculine and feminine" rather than "male and female." It would in fact be LESS natural for a gay male to marry a straight female than a more-feminine gay male to marry a more-masculine gay male. Seems to me he is arguing against himself, using this defense that humans have natural gender roles.From what I've seen, they way people like this man free themselves of this contradiction is to pathologize homosexuality. Yes, they may say, it's "natural", but still "aberrant" and should therefore be treated as a sickness.

I no longer know what is "natural", nor do I much care. I have had three friends/acquaintances/colleagues, all brilliant and accomplished in their fields (doctoral-level education and employment), all good kind people, who have transitioned to the other gender. Deep down I don't really "get it", can't imagine my way inside their heads - but I don't have to, it's their lives, all I owe them is the same respect and affection as before.

It's funny, because in fact it was getting married that, for me, eroded the last vestiges of my belief in "natural" gender roles away. If you were to abstractly map patterns of behavior alone in the day-to-day lives of my wife and myself over time, you wouldn't see a difference at all. Good Lord...am I...am I...unmanly????

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